1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a kit for touching-up, i.e. color matching, of the color of the finish of furniture which has been marred or damaged, and more specifically to the as-perfect-as-possible matching of the color of the finish furniture which has been damaged subsequent to finishing provided by the manufacturer and to a method for making the kit.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many consumers, in fact it is safe to say most consumers, have experienced marring or damage of the finish of a piece of furniture, either by accident or by negligence. This damage can affect the color of the finish and can arise, for example, at the manufacturer during movement or packing of the item, at the wholesaler or distributor by movements during receiving, storing and shipping, at the retailer during receiving and shipping (delivery), or at the consumer's premises during delivery or house cleaning, i.e. vacuuming and the like. The question then arises as how to match the color to that of the surrounding area so as not to be noticeable. This is known in the art as spot repair.
Each manufacturer has a range of colorings which are obtained from one or a combination of colors (pigment dyes) and which can be replicated, even remote from the manufacturer's finishing shop. Admittedly, the person doing the touch-up process must have a "good eye"; but even given that qualification, an accurate color match may be created by most persons. In this connection, one may refer to Furniture Repair Products from Mohawk, Copyright 1986, Mohawk Finishing Products, Inc., Amsterdam, N.Y., 15.sup.th Edition 1990-91, for example.
It is known in the art of painting to create various hues or shades of colors by mixing paints. This covers the gamut from the professional artist using, for example, acrylics, to paint stores, hardware stores and home improvement centers with computer-matched paint tinting, and to children's paint kits. In the former, the artist mixes one color with another or others to obtain a desired "new" color. Paint stores, hardware stores and home improvement centers subject a sample of paint-to-be-matched to a color separation and evaluation process to determine the types and amounts of tinting colors to be added to and mixed with a base color in order to obtain a match. Since most house paint, interior and exterior, is based on one of two or three base colors, this works for all colors expect at the extreme dark end of the color spectrum, but when one is working with a large area, such as an entire wall or loom, color difference is not usually detectable for the walls or ceiling; furniture, however, is different in that it becomes focal.
The above techniques involve the use of a paint or color vehicle with the colors or tints (hereinafter, simply colors) themselves. With water colors, including the professional artist use and the children's water color paint kits, the vehicle, water, is separate and is used to dissolve the available colors. The combination of the water and the colors are used to satisfy the desire of the painter, as mentioned above for the professional artist, and not in a comparison to a defined existing color thereby giving rise to a unique tinting problem.
The above-cited Mohawk publication describes processes for refinishing damaged spots (spot repair) using their kits of jars of powder dye and a dissolving vehicle. The present invention is considered to be a step beyond these kits and processes, particularly in convenience to both the amateur and the professional.